Madame Bovary - Emma, Christianity, and Adultery

Emily Dickinson: Her View of God Emily Dickinson had a view of God and His power that was very strange for a person of her time. Dickinson questioned God, His power, and the people in the society around her. She did not believe in going to church because she felt as though she couldn't find any answers there. She asked God questions through writing poems, and believed that she had to wait until she died to find out the answers. Dickinson was ahead of her time with beliefs like this.

Christians view themselves as having an essential sinful nature, which they deal with through Christianity. As people convert, they are seeking redemption by being reborn into Christianity with that sinful nature, but they have the promise that their sins will be forgiven because Christ died for them. This ritual very deeply influenced Perpetua’s identity. She views herself primarily as a Christian and this ritual is

The Puritans held faith close to their hearts and believed in the overall righteousness and power of God, believing that He had the power to show gratitude when given the proper glory and also to show his wrath if the Puritans were not showing strong faith. They believed in predestination, which is the theory that God decided who would be saved into the kingdom of heaven or who would be deemed to suffer in Hell before each person was even born. Mary Rowlandson experienced what many people consider the greatest test of a strong Puritan woman’s faith and devotion to God. At the beginning of her captivity, she poses the questions, why did this happen to me, why did you do this to my family, and is this some sort of punishment? In numerous sections of the narrative, Mary Rowlandson states that she feels remorse for not acting in the way in which Puritans must act before God, for example, “The next day was the Sabbath.

The letters of Abelard and Heloise provide not only a heartbreaking story between two star crossed lovers, but provides a deep insight to how Christianity influenced societal views. The idea of sex was not one of acceptance, but one of condemnation and toleration, even within a marriage. Virginity was admired, but for the wrong reasons such as societal approval instead of God. Finally, the role of a woman was one that was not highly positive, she was seen as an inferior, whose role was to serve her husband.

As can be read it is difficult to come to a decision whether divorce and remarriage can ever be justified because it is hard to do justice to both sides of Jesus' teaching. To preserve that sanctity of marriage and still look after and abide by Jesus' teaching and be loving and forgiving to those people who find themselves in difficulties. Divorce and re-marriage can be justified in some cases. If the family is unhappy together then a divorce can enable the people to end the marriage. If they then chose to re-marry they can have learnt form their mistakes.

Mrs. Turpin is already "saved" because she is a Christian, but she needs a revelation from Mary Grace to realize that her world view is interfering with her religion. Mrs. Turpin asks Mary Grace, during her seizure, "What you got to say to me?" and waits, "as for a revelation." (O’Connor, “Revelation” 372). This reflects Mrs. Turpin’s selfishness because she worried about how Mary Grace’s actions related to her, not Mary Grace’s health.

Taking the prospective as an outsider, it seems like she recognizes the vision as a Godly one, but then forgets all she has priorly discovered as a satanic craziness within herself. This to me seems to be going against what she has been trying to prove. In order to prove God’s presence on the next level, she gets guidance from a friend whom God put in her life. Even though Teresa is an authority figure and should be believed, she didn’t trust herself. I see her act of asking for advice from her confessor and saint friend, as adding more power to her reliability of her saying that God revealed himself in her visions.

Discipleship and Mark's Gospel Mark's Gospel can tell us the entire truth about discipleship, telling Christians about the faith, responsibility, and sacrifice involved in following Jesus. Some may even say that we glimpse a harsh reality of what it really means to be a true Christian disciple and to have complete faith. Although in saying this, it is important to note that Mark's Gospel does also cover the rewards and the actual meaning of discipleship. This is important to include as Mark's Gospel was written at a time when Christians endured much persecution. They may have wondered why they should tolerate this treatment without any kind of reward and so Mark included this in his gospel.

Simon Legree uses Christianity against his slaves in order to maintain control over them, hoping that punishment for practicing the Christian faith will prevent his slaves from developing ideas of freedom. On the other hand, religion also creates hope for many people during this period. Evangeline is portrayed as the perfect Christian, and shows how the Christian faith can create hope for people and inspire them to lead good Christian lives, setting an almost unreachable standard. Uncle Tom also portrays hope that can be gained from the Christian faith. As a Christ figure, Uncle Tom is able to inspire many others to become better Christians and hope for a better life in the future.

Thus Emma turns to the comforts of adultery and when passion is not readily available she will resor... ... middle of paper ... ...t look on Leon realistically without seeing all his human imperfections. In which case she soon tires of him, as he does her. As her relationship with Leon progresses she also comes to understand that the lover she dreams of is a "man whose worldly existence [is] impossible." As the result of her childhood Emma Bovary spends her entire life in an attempt to escape her middle-class existence by dreams, love affairs and false pretensions. Emma constantly changes her activities, her surroundings and her love situations in a desperate attempt to grasp the fairy tales she entombed in her soul as a child.